aligned with a tilted axis
by Julia Claire
Summary: -Your head is programmed to make sense of senseless things.- Teddy and Victoire, in a dark and spinning world.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Likewise, the quote, that Lily reads in here - "God is dead" - is Nietzsche's. In writing this piece, I was very inspired by the philopsophy, psychology, music, and art of the Age of Anxiety (the period following World War I in Europe, and there are several allusions to that, although nothing direct, save the aforementioned quote. **

**A/N: I have not written fanfiction in a long time. The style, plot, and themes are all very different from pretty much anything I've ever done before; I tried to put a lot of layers into this piece, and I hope they can all be seen and are somewhat comprehensible. It's not actually AU, since this piece takes place post-DH and is entirely canon-compliant - but I think it's probably a lot darker than anything JKR would give these characters.**

**For Pearl. :)**

aligned with a tilted axis

_("Almost all the affairs of men remain in terrible uncertainty.")_

_(Paul Valary, 1919)_

The people huddle around the graves, their faces long, haggard, tired, around the hard gray stones. There's people under there – he's told – his parents, maybe. He doesn't understand.

The dew is wet and cold and soft, hanging from the grass leaves; it soaks his new brown shoes. The tears are wet and cold and soft, he knows, though he can't feel those, just see them, dripping on every cheek. Some people are angry; some people are sad. He doesn't understand.

We are here today, this second of May, to commemorate...

The words are like dewdrops or raindrops or teardrops, just there, dropping, falling, curling; he feels them, on his feet, on his cheeks, chubby and round. He doesn't understand.

Come here, Teddy – and someone sticks a flower in his hand and props him up next to the little golden-haired girl with sparkly blue eyes. Tell her, Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, he says, without any inflection, and kisses her on the cheek, like a gentlemen, like his grandmother told him to, wet, loudly. Some people laugh; some people cry.

Hope, an old woman says, her back hunched. Hope.

Teddy doesn't understand, but he feels the weight of it all, the moisture, the dampness, the sunshine, the weight of the little golden-haired girl's hand in his.

)(

I knew it all along.

– Teddy hears it before and after he picks her up and spins around and kisses her on the platform, before and after the scarlet steam engine whisks her away.

A gasp, a clatter of footsteps – _What_ are you _doing_? Teddy laughs; James has never failed to amuse him.

There's a tightness in his chest, though, even as he smiles, even as he turns to kiss her again, the golden-haired girl. His own hair is golden this day too.

I knew it all along, they say, before and after he emerges, before and after he waves her away on that scarlet train. He follows after it for a few steps; he is guided; he smiles. And still there is a tightness in his chest, beneath the laugh, the glory, the love. They knew it all along, they say; Teddy is never alone.

)(

Your parents would be proud, you know – Harry's hand reaches out, claps him on the shoulder – So proud.

The words are for him and him alone, a mutter hidden underneath a wide, heartfelt smile. His godfather seems a little old, today, a little squat, but perhaps it is just his own perception, for Teddy has never felt so young, so tall, so straight-backed, so infinite.

Teddy is a hero, standing there, next to the man who he has seen as both father and brother and uncle and role model.

He swears to uphold the honor of his office – an Auror, an Auror, like his mother, a fighter, like his parents – and smiles at the clapping, at Victoire, in the front row, her golden hair long and loose, her eyes full of stars, full of him. She has recently become a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; like him, she has also begun to climb ladders.

He is the last in line, the last of his class to graduate to Auror status. It should have been alphabetical, he knows, dimly, but it seems so natural this way, him going last, him being the one on stage when they all stand to cheer, to applaud... for him, for him, the last.

… These young wizards and witches who stand before you today will continue to erase the stain of crime and evil in the Wizarding world, will continue to be the ones who move transform the world, who bring us forward into a new era of peace and justice and progress...

Harry's words, not empty ones, for he lived them once, has built up everything since Voldemort fell – since Voldemort was felled by him, by Harry Potter.

Progress, progress. Teddy smiles; he could run a marathon, feeling like this. Who could doubt those words, who could doubt that truth?

)(

We're the ones, he tells Victoire. Her blue dress spins lightly as he twirls her around the room. The air is loose and light and free, like him, as they dance on the beach. She has just been promoted.

We're the ones, he repeats. It's like a song. We're the ones to change the world.

Yes, she says, her beautiful voice really lifted up in song. Yes... We're the ones...

)(

Red, red, red, he thinks dimly; he can't move.

)(

It's always been there – shit – war, evil, the monsters that lurked in his closet. He grew up with it. He should have known – you can check under your bed, look over your shoulder, run as fast as you can, even run a marathon.

It's still there. What you see is an illusion; your head is programmed to make sense of senseless things.

He should have known.

)(

He knows he should have known.

(Will you be the one to guard me, Teddy?)

(He stood up, straight, proud. Yes!)

They are proud, they are so proud, on that stage, the tall, strong heroes, as Harry makes the announcement. It's not even controversial, just routine, a new policy for organizing patrols that they hope will even further stop petty fraud.

Petty fraud – after all his godfather has done, this is what he dies for, this is what he speaking of, at forty-three, so very young, when the curse rips through the air and hips him full in the face. Teddy is not fast enough to stop it.

)(

His grandmother has been dead for two years; his parents have been dead his whole life, but somehow he thought... he never thought...

He grew up with the scar on Harry's forehead always in his eyesight, and a hole where his parents were supposed to be, a hole where they were supposed to read him bedtime stories and check for monsters, and so he had to tell himself there was nothing there, in the closet, under the bed, but he lied to himself, but there was, there was, there was.

)(

What happened?

What happened what happened what happened?

The world swims; Lily's freckles, Victoire's blue eyes, it all blurs before him. Again, they ask, What happened?

Shit, he says, and he cries, the grown man, twenty-six, and Victoire, cries, twenty-four, and Lily, the daughter, the youngest, fourteen, just sits there and stares.

Never mind – Lily says, after a moment or hour or day (he's not sure), her face flat, her eyes just holes; she's always been so precocious – I know. She picks a book off the shelf and hurls it in his face. The black print before him reads, God is dead. She points to the sky, and he knows she's not talking about her father, not directly.

He is still for a moment, just a moment, still.

Maybe he is, Victoire says, quietly, determinedly, blankly, and Teddy loses it, fracturing into a million pieces (just like his godfather's head, when the spell hit, like his broken body, just, just there, in front of him, just there, because he couldn't stop it).

The book hits the wall, and he's screaming at Victoire like he's never screamed at anyone before, like she is no more to him than a dog that has shit on his shoe.

Blasphemy, he yells, over and over and over, Blasphemy. He has never even thought much about God before, has only ever harbored a vague sort of agnosticism, much more muddled than his grandmother's clear faith, but it matters somehow, now.

Victoire fights back; she does not take it. He has never realized how very tall she is until this moment, how angry she can be. She slips into French and he yells, Blasphemy, and screams that Harry didn't die, he didn't die for _this_, and somehow in the midst of the fighting, Lily slides away upstairs with a stone-dead face and a broken book in her hand, and they fall, fall, fall apart. When at last, the room has fallen quiet again, they are left alone, distinct, Teddy, Victoire, each taking heaving breaths, out of rhythm.

)(

A mad man killed him, it is determined, but not by Teddy, by another Auror, another faction. According to the report, the man probably didn't even know what he was doing, wasn't motivated by any sort of plot, any sort of sense.

The killer is killed, drunk on firewhiskey, in a Muggle city, by a Muggle driver, a week later, probably without knowing what he had done, before they can track him down, before anyone can get any sort of sense or reason from him, before anyone can get revenge.

Harry Potter's killing is all nonsense and pointlessness, and Teddy slumps against his hard-backed chair and thinks about how there's no justice in it, there's no justice at all...

)(

The world is different, and he tries to wake up, but no matter how hard he rubs his eyes, it all still blurs and swirls with black.

)(

Teddy deals with it all right; he goes back to work in the office and keeps working dutifully because it's what Harry wanted, because Harry would not have given up. He deals with it all right, because he has to set an example for the other kids, the younger kids, for Harry's family.

Albus comes to stay with Teddy in his flat some nights, when he can't sleep for the nightmares, and James comes to talk with him – whenever he's worried about Ginny or Albus or Lily (_James_ is fine; he's always fine; he's much too tough and no, that wasn't him _crying_). Dominique comes to him and says she wants to be an Auror, and he can tell from the steel in her eyes that it's true, and Hugo makes batches and batches of cookies and for once, doesn't ask a whit like the Slytherin he is, and Roxanne makes sensitive, well-meaning jokes. Rose plans everything and writes up a whole memorial speech for the funeral, and he thinks he's never seen someone so put together.

But some of the others take it all wrong, some of the others can't seem go on like it was before. Lucy starts wearing shorts in the middle of February, and somehow, this concerns him, and Lily hides behind massive books and won't speak to him much. Odd, wrong notes and haunting chords start to echo in George and Angelina's house, from Freddy's violin. Teddy walks into Percy Weasley's house – he's got a meeting with him – and finds twenty-three year old Molly and fifteen-year-old Lorcan aiming spells at a piece of canvas splattered with burn marks and paint globs and feathers and glitter. Her old portraits – the meticulous, perfect renderings of all her relatives – are crumpled into balls on the floor, and when he asks what they think they are doing, Molly says it's artistic expression, thank you.

His head spins. Molly has never been rude in her entire life.

Expressing what, he asks, wearily, and she just laughs again, choking out a sob and spins once before answering –

Nothing, nothing at all.

But it's Victoire that worries him the most, that worries them all the most.

She hasn't talked to him, not really, since Harry's funeral, when she came up and told him she was sorry, so sorry, and left before he could say anything else. At first, she says, Hello, Teddy, and nothing more, when she sees him in the Ministry lifts, but that fades fast, into a nod that gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

It's like she's overcompensating for the death, like she thinks that if she gets all the right answers, it'll be all right again, like she has to be perfect.

She's ridiculously uptight (her friends in the Department tell him she has become a Right Bitch) and snaps at anyone who makes the smallest mistake and ties up her long, loose, golden hair up in the tightest bun he's ever seen. Weeks pass, and her make-up gets heavier and her heels get higher, and she starts smoking cigarettes like they are candy, and he sees her less and less and less. He hasn't heard her sing since Harry died. She stops coming to family gatherings, unless he has to miss, and one day, she doesn't look at him when he passes, not even to smile.

He has to save them, he thinks, he knows, has to make it all like it was before, back when things were good and he was happy. He has to save them because how else is he going to save himself?

)(

Harry Potter is six months gone. Teddy has solved five major cases in the Auror Department and been to twenty-nine dinners at the Burrow and more at the Potters and comforted one of them more times than he can count.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees red, red, red; he misses the days when his world was gold.

(Victoire cuts her hair short and bleaches it almost white, and it's just another casualty.)

)(

Hey, Louis, he says, opening the door and grinning widely, a box of cookies in his hand.

The pale face, thin and angular, framed with blond locks, looks at him doubtfully. He doesn't move away from the door he's just opened to allow Teddy through. I thought you had a meeting, Louis says, playing with his bangs nervously. Dad said you weren't coming.

I did. It was canceled, Teddy answers, breezily, still stuck on the front step, wondering what can possibly be bothering the boy. Can I come in?

At last, hesitating, Louis lets him into Audrey and Percy's front hall, and floating from the front room is her voice.

He almost runs up to join them, to join her – and glimpses only a flash of her cropped, light hair, of the back of her head, the back of her long, long legs, before the door closes, and the only face in the back of the room in Louis's guilty one.

Teddy almost yells, he almost follows - but he is much too tired tonight, to fight.

)(

It must be the firewhiskey, that makes her talk like this.

I can't come to dinner tomorrow, sorry, because I've got too much work, Teddy is telling Ginny an hour later, in Percy's upstairs hallways. I've got a report to finish, but I know I ought to see Lily, so if you send her over to my apartment around eight, I'll take her out for ice cream –

She interrupts him, goblet in hand, her face lined, her eyes fixed at a point behind him, on one of Molly's nonsense paintings, which now hang in what seems like every single room of the house. This one is green and silver and scarlet and gold and lines – just lines, but Teddy still takes care to stand with his back to it.

Teddy, calm down, Ginny says. You can't do everything.

It is Ginny Potter's voice and Ginny Potter's face, but not her words; these cannot be her words, not the words of a woman who fought behind Harry Potter at sixteen and kept the resistance going at Hogwarts the whole year before, with Neville and Luna and flew for the Harpies, even while she was pregnant with James, and loved his godfather so fiercely and, and, and – how can that woman, the widow, now, speak like this?

I, I, he stutters. The world spins; he can feel Molly's painting burning into the back of his head – scarlet and gold, green and silver, wound around one each other, impossible to separate...

You're so like him, think you could save everyone, she says softly, reaching out, her eyes full of the past as she goes on. But even he couldn't. Even we couldn't...

Her touch burns, like the colors of the painting behind him, and his anger flares. Teddy stands, unable to bear it, stands and leaves.

)(

Teddy walks, like a dead man, into the kitchen, where Lily is, holed up in a corner. Where is she? he asks.

Lily's eyes flicker to his, and she straightens up slightly and points. She doesn't need to ask who he is talking about.

Teddy follows her finger, back into the interior of the house and finds her, Victoire, at last.

Her hair is still white like blank canvases and staring eyes, but he can just see the golden roots. With Ginny's words reverberating in his brain, he reaches out and grabs her wrist and throws up words.

Please, Victoire, he says, I'm sorry. He's gone, Victoire, he says, I want it all back. I need you, Victoire, please. I'm scared, Victoire. You can make it better again. We can make it better again. I miss the way it used to be. This has been so hard. You don't have to be perfect anymore. Please come back...

Teddy gives her a small kiss, like he once did, so long ago, so long ago, and the air hangs heavy, like it once did, and she hesitates, just a moment, her eyes full of tears and something else, something he can't read, as she stands and lets him fall into her arms, as a ring of relatives gathers, silent, around them, and cries.

He can almost hear that little old woman again. Hope, hope. They'll make it all right again.

)(

You don't have to be perfect anymore, he said, he says.

She transfigures her hair back the way it used to be. It falls, long and golden, to the middle of her back, and she wears lighter, looser clothing, floppy sandals, instead of heels.

You don't have to be perfect anymore, he said, he says.

She brings him breakfast, every morning, slipping into his cubicle like the sunlight through a window, and the spend every morning that way, eating together. While they eat, she'll sing him a song, lilting and beautiful. When she kisses him good morning, her breath smells of mints and not of – never of – cigarettes.

She's light and rosy and smiling and patient and kind and it's –

You don't have to be perfect anymore, he said, he says.

Everyone sees it, how nice she is, how nice they are, how happy. Everyone sees it.

(Teddy is never alone, after all, even when he is lonely.)

)(

Do you think we can do it?

She is curled up in the extra chair he keeps just for her in his office, watching him sort through his case files, the ones his stupid-arse partner has dumped all over his desk before jetting off to southern Italy for a vacation.

He snorts, flipping through the pages. The bloody sale of fake cauldrons... a string of petty burglaries in Diagon Alley, just started up again, that fits the pattern of another string, from so many months before... Merlin alive, he says, I don't have time for this...

Do you think we can be the ones they want us to be? she asks, her voice rising slightly at the end of the sentence.

Teddy looks up. What did you say, Victoire?

She smiles, slightly, her wide blue eyes not looking at him anymore, at the blank white wall.

Never mind, she says, and leans in to kiss him. Never mind.

)(

She never stays the night (never has, never did).

They both know they'll get married someday, in a big church with a high ceiling and Victoire in a huge, puffy, white dress and a special seat, reserved for his parents and grandmother and godfather, a special seat for Harry. They both know that afterwards, people will line up in rows, after, to tell them how, They knew it all along, how, They knew it all along.

It's a promise. So she doesn't stay the night, and he doesn't really ask her to, ask her for more than tingling kisses and loving words and smiles.

It's a promise. So he doesn't ask her to explain why she is a little late a little too often or comes smelling like a little too much perfume or wearing a thick, expensive bracelet he has never seen before.

It's a promise. So neither of them say anything, in those fractions of moments, when they both know more than they would like to admit.

She is so perfect, so perfect, so perfect for him, and when he watches her golden hair dance, he can almost forgot about the red, can forget about all the darkness. She is the piece that makes it all fit, that means he can forget about guilt and grief and anxiety and believe in the world.

)(

It's so tempting, to fall into the trap of believing that the universe is determinate, that everything is ruled by fate, that everything has a reason.

He takes a step and plunges, down, down, down, and Molly's colors spin around him, red and silver, gold and green, and Fred's chords echo, hauntingly, and Lily's words, stolen from those old books, reverberate.

)(

Teddy, you had better see this.

The face is grim and sad and worse, worse, worse, pitying; he thought, after Harry's funeral, he would never have to see that face again.

)(

NO, NO, NO – she is screaming and mad and unrecognizable, scratching at their arms and flailing her long, thin legs which are bare but for a pair of tiny shorts and covered with bruises.

NO, NO, NO – they are holding her down, with her wand safely out of reach, the solid pewter cauldron she cannot possibly need taken from her, and still she fights, as though she has something left to fight for, anything left.

NO, NO, NO – and he knows the only reason they have not Stunned her yet, have let her cause this ruckus in the middle of the Ministry, is because of who she is, Victoire Weasley, Harry Potter's niece, Teddy Lupin's girlfriend, the beautiful, smart, intelligent woman, the rising star of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She is, she was – looking at her now, Teddy thinks, looking at those wild eyes and her messy hair and the cloud of cigarette smoke around her, the tight clothes and the heavy make-up, she is not Victoire Weasley at all.

He raises his wand at her, arm shaking, and at last she stops.

Teddy, she says and is still. She laughs, and it all seems so meaningless.

Teddy, another voice says, next to him, another Auror, pulling on his arm. The whole world has gone mad today and perhaps he, Teddy, looks mad too, because the voice is anxious. That's your girlfriend. It's – it's Victoire. Don't do anything stupid... we've got things under control. We caught her stealing from Diagon Alley, in Madame Malkin's, but she had the cauldron with her too... We think she's the one responsible for all that shop-lifting... She told us... before she started screaming...

That, Teddy says, teeth clenched, is not Victoire, is not my girlfriend.

But it is, she says, staring at him intently, all trace of madness gone from her eyes. She has never sounded so intelligent, so rational, in this mad, mad place, in this mad, mad world. But I am.

She's distraught, Teddy says, wand still pointed at her. Harry's... Harry's death, he says, It's affected a lot of us, badly. She doesn't know what she's doing...

Victoire laughs again, and this time, he hears the sadness in it.

But it's not, she says. It's not because of Harry. I don't know what I'm doing, maybe, but Teddy, you have to know – I never stole and I never smoked and I never lied, except when I was with you.

Stupefy, he cries; the jet of red (red, red, red) hits her straight in the heart.

)(

Teddy is the one who is given (who pleads for) the job to recover the stolen merchandise.

He doesn't even have to look very hard in her apartment, to find her hoard, the pile of things she has stolen and kept, most of it still brand-new, never used. (The pile of things is immense and dark and glittering, bracelets and necklaces and books and even a few dresses, wands and cauldrons and scales and potion ingredients and two owl cages and a bottle of frog medicine and all nonsense.) He doesn't even have to look very hard to find the packages of cigarettes, the burn marks on the back of her couch.

He doesn't even have to think very hard, to realize that she is telling the truth, that the shop-lifting records match what she said, that he never saved her from grief or perfection, that he has never saved anyone from anything.

After the other Aurors leave, lugging the loot along with them, Teddy remains, sits on the floor of her apartment, puffing one of her cigarettes (he has never smoked before; the paper feels odd between his smooth, white fingers), glassy-eyed, for long time, hardly moving until the door swings open. Her father appears in the doorway, his scarred face longer than usual.

We'll sort this out, Teddy, Bill says. I've talked to them, brought her home. A couple of 'em were pushing for her to lose her job, but I convinced them – what with Harry's death and it being her first offense and all, though the theft was, well...

Pathological, Teddy thinks, staring straight ahead. Mad.

Extensive, Bill finishes. But they're going to have a small little hearing tomorrow; she'll probably have to pay a small fine, some community service... and then, I suppose it'll be alright again. You'll see.

Teddy's throat convulses; he feels the straight urge to laugh or cry, he's not sure which. He'd like to believe that this is one mad event in a mostly good, well-aligned world; he'd like to believe, even, that she is one mad thing, like Harry's death was one mad thing, like Harry's killer was.

But the evidence stacks up like cards (a child's game, of chance) and the truth is too hard, too hard, not to see, that the world is spinning madly, tilted, that no one has the power to stop it.

)(

They don't end up holding the hearing in the Department Head's office because she, Victoire, was from the Department, because it'd be unfair – because it makes for a good show, to let her sit in the middle of courtroom, so everyone can get a good look at her (the heroine who stumbled, the golden girl who imploded – the only thing better, after all, than a rising star, is a falling one).

Some people are there for pity, for this poor girl who has lost her uncle, the great wizard, the great hero, and some people scoff and say that excuses can't be made, even in troubled times like these, that this woman knew what she was doing, got greedy and lustful for money and power, or else that she was always unhinged, crazy, part-Veela, you know...

The Weasleys sit in the front row, sad and silent, and Teddy slips in late into the back row, and is not sure, anxious, uncertain, lost, unable to orient himself any longer by the sight of her. Her hair is cropped and bleached again, and she is clad in all black, and looks messy. There is no gold in her, any more. But she is not shouting today; she is calm, with only her steel eyes and sardonically twisted mouth a hint to what she feels.

It is all so unnecessary, this fuss, this crowd, for when she rises – she is supposed, he knows, to say that she did not mean it, that she is sorry, to plead insanity brought on by grief – all she says, obstinately, stubbornly, stoically, is, "Guilty. I'm guilty."

There is a silence, and the world spins on as it always has, madly, madly, and for the first time, for once, Teddy lets it spin, lets it be, accepts that he cannot change it, as he jumps down from his seat at the top. He swings his fists and kicks his legs and knocks down anyone who gets in his way. The Ministry officials – some his friends, his fellow Aurors, rise, belatedly, everyone seems to stunned to do much of anything, and he shoots curses at them, and they all seem to fall away. The only shot they get at him is stinging, in his eye, a weak spell that makes half his world blur (but what does that matter, really?), that does not stop him, until he stands in front of her. This time, he does not waste words.

She stares at him, with those clear blue eyes.

"I love you," he tells her, clearly, directly, not for the first time, but the meaning is so very different, so very real, now.

She takes his hand, and they leave, running, running, her words and his still hanging in the air.

)(

His eye stings, but he can still find her lips, as they push up against each other, harder, with more force, than they ever have before. They are twisted together, inseperable, like the colors in Molly's painting – green and red, silver and gold. Light spins before his eyes, and everything falls away, the perfection he always forced upon her, the progress, the hope, they were supposed to carry, were supposed to bear, his faith in sense and reason, the secrets she always hid. Everything falls away, except them, Teddy and Victoire; they are stripped bare, but for the guilt and grief, sin and love, the freedom inherent in it all.

)(

This is who I am, she says, afterward, twisting a cigarette between two fingers. I try too hard at work and I'm not patient and I screw up and I'm greedy and I hate to sing, even if I'm good at it. Who I was for you was the one who tried too hard, too hard, to fit, to be perfect, to be something I wasn't never was. I realized that when – when Uncle Harry died. That it was better, to be who I was, then, then who I was trying to be before. It hurt, to try. I couldn't deal with it, when I was with you again. I had to... she trails off, and he knows she is talking about the stealing, the thefts.

He asks, Why? Why did you try?

Because I loved you, she says, her skinny body shivering slightly, Because I always have, for all your stubbornness and anger. You're self-centered and overly ambitious and I shouldn't love you because we don't fit together like everyone thinks we do. We're probably bad for each other. We are bad for each other. The world doesn't make sense, Teddy. We don't make sense.

He might feel hopeless, if he had had any hope left.

But I'll try again, she goes on. I'll try again, she says, if you understand. If you can let it be, now. It won't hurt so bad then.

He asks, trembling, Why?

Because it doesn't make sense, she says, mildly, adamantly. Because I love you.

)(

It does not take the Ministry long to find them, to tell them that there will be no more trials. There is no need; Teddy and Victoire do not hesistate before proclaiming their own guilt.

Assault, burglary – the judge's eyes are brimmed with pity, but he cannot ignore what they have done. Money and jobs and connections and fame are all stripped away, as though they have not already been stripped of everything, and the Ministry even try to take away their freedom - but even in jail, for their month-long stint, they are more liberated than they have ever been before.

Teddy cannot bring himself to regret anything; Victoire says the same.

)(

It is cloudy the day they are let out, and it's all different and the world still blurs and swirls with black before him (his left eye is half-ruined, half-blind).

He does not try and rub his eyes, now. This is just the way the world is.

)(

Why did you do it? her father asks and her mother and her grandmother and everybody, everybody, anybody, at the courtroom doors, with disbelief and grief and anger smudged all over their faces. The _guilty _still hangs heavy in the air. Teddy can almost make it out, with his good eye.

He nearly trips over the step; Victoire has to guide him around it, as he says, If you can't see it, you never will. He smiles at Molly and Freddy and Lily and Ginny.

But your parents, Teddy, her grandmother cries, anguished, What would they think?

He shrugs. I hope they'd understand. I hope they'd know I love them.

I told you it would be all right I again, Bill says, uncharacteristically angry. You're betraying your parents, and Harry, what would Harry think? You've ruined my daughter! It could have all been right –

No, Teddy says.

No, Victoire says.

It had to be like this.

A lot of people probably think he's just a bitter, broken man, as he limps off, his big toe smarting; he doesn't really care.

)(

They stick him in a back office with the paperwork because he can't see well enough to be out in the field anymore, and they stick her in the lowest office, with the people who can't afford lawyers, can't afford to pay well. They have a small wedding a few years later, with only a few guests and hardly any pomp and circumstance. The house they move into is small and by the sea; the roof leaks when it rains too hard, which is to say, when it rains.

Victoire is angry, some days, and sad on others. She never sings and tries too damn hard to be perfect and screams if her heels get muffed and loses patience with the kids too often and talks too much and too fast and comes home late half the time and occasionally overcooks his meat. He cries too easily and loses his temper too much and worries too much and always seems to forget to take the dog for a walk and gives into Lyddie and Jonathan much too often and forgets to compliment her cooking six out of seven days in the week.

)(

They grow old, grow ugly, grow deaf. Her eyes grow as hazy as his, as dull as her hair. He can feel the wrinkles form on her fingers as the years pass, as the days do. They grow weary, trudging off to work again and again and again, without distinction or heroism or progress. Any difference they make is lost to the crowd or the years or the seconds.

There is no prize, he tells her, once, for living, really living. It's a let down, an anticlimax. They are happy.


End file.
